As he was talking, he suddenly saw a fat man in his thirties entering the cafeteria. He had a tall figure, knee-length shorts, a short-sleeved T-shirt, a waist bag and a pistol holster tied around his stomach with a black nylon belt, buttoned on the back of his head.
The straw hat on his head proves that he is an out-and-out veteran.
The indigenous employees who were eating were no longer surprised by the elders who came in and out of the canteen - several elders could be seen in the shipyard every day, guiding work at various construction sites and workshops.
He poked his head and looked around, and suddenly found Jiang Ye and the others. His eyes suddenly lit up and he waved his arms:
"Quick, a few people come and collect the goods!"
Zhou Billy picked his teeth and, surrounded by several apprentices, came to the shipyard's special station - actually a special unloading station. A diesel engine on the track was emitting steam from the front, and several workers climbed up and down to inspect the front of the car.
―Now these diesel locomotives have all been gasified, and the flat-bed locomotives that originally seemed a bit empty now have a gas generator and a special gas storage bag.
Of course, there are also many problems with high-yield gas generators and gas storage bags. Air leakage is the most common and serious problem. Fortunately, the front of this kind of car is completely exposed to the air, and a slight air leakage will not cause any problems.
It takes lives.
A yellow lantern hung on the flatbed truck - this indicated that the truck was loaded with over-long or special-sized cargo. At this time, several huge masts were loaded on the flatbed truck.
Large sailing ships have very high requirements for the supply of mast materials, that is, the mast must be straight and have a certain circular diameter. It is best to use a single straight material. In Europe, shipbuilding materials mainly come from Eastern Europe, especially Poland and Russia.
Forests provide it, and it is very difficult to find such suitable wood on the coast of South China - traditional Chinese sailing ships rarely have such tall masts. Even the large wood seized from Baitu Village is not enough to make such a mast.
.
There are very few such large timbers among the timber obtained from Vietnam and Sanya. Although there are many good hard timbers such as teak and nanmu, there are not many that can meet the needs of the mast in terms of height and diameter. In the end, Wende
Si decided to abandon the use of the entire mast and adopt the British method of composite masts.
The so-called composite mast, as the name suggests, means that the mast is made of multiple pieces of wood connected together. Such a mast is not limited by the size of the wood itself. Basically, sailboat masts of any size can be manufactured. Of course, this kind of mast cannot be compared with natural strength in terms of overall strength.
The whole straight mast is comparable.
"After the British were cut off from the supply of mast wood, they relied on composite masts for a long time." Wen Desi said, "Before we could get more suitable wood, we just used composite masts."
Even when making composite masts, try to use large pieces of the same type of wood. Wu Kuangming asked the Forestry Department staff to find all suitable wood from the inventory. He also collected information from traders and inquired about large-scale materials that can be obtained stably and in large quantities over the long term.
The species of wood. The final conclusion was drawn to fir.
Fir is a soft wood, which is not ideal as a ship material, but it is by no means unusable. In fact, most merchant ships along the coast of South China in this time and space have widely used fir because of the lack of large timber in other hard woods.
Manufacturing. The British also used a large amount of fir and pine to make masts and decks. The best oak was used as hulls, keels and ribs.
"The dimensions of the three fir masts are..." He read the numbers on the delivery note, "Please measure them and prepare to receive them."
These large timbers have gone through a series of pre-processing, and the next step is to be sent to the shipyard's special fumigation kiln for processing. Hailin, who sent the timber, is an expert in wood processing technology and goes to the shipyard here every three days. Zhou Billy has already met with
He was very familiar with it. I handed him a cigarette casually.
"The fir tree this time is really big!" he said casually.
"It's not big enough." Hailin took the cigarette and consciously put it on his ear. Smoking is not allowed on the platform. This is a rule. The steam locomotive is fine, but the gas locomotive is a very dangerous and explosive equipment.
"Of course, it would be nice to have solid materials. Now the hoop mast has become a complicated job."
"The biggest and best ones were all given to the emperor," Hailin said, "either to build palaces or tombs, and the smaller ones were cut into sections to make coffins."
"It would be great if we could have wood from Southeast Asia."
"It all depends on when the wise and mighty Governor will make this great decision." Hailin said in a strange tone, "Let's go and see where the mast is hoisted. I would like to see what happens to these pieces of wood of different sizes.
It’s pieced together.”
In the metalworking workshop with a long-span iron truss structure, steam filled the air, and carbide lamps emitted dazzling light. The loud noises of two steam forging hammers were repeated one after another, the creaking of the overhead crane, and the sound of hoisting and lowering trumpets.
The sound of forgers hammering forgings made the whole workshop lively.
In a corner of the workshop, it is the work area of the hoop mast. The round materials with joints opened according to the best strength combination according to the CAD software have been placed on the iron pulley and are firmly fixed by interlocking with each other - in the mutual interlocking technology.
, Wu Kuangming engaged in some traditional mortise and tenon technology to ensure a tighter bite. According to the requirements of the technical data, workers have nailed iron fasteners into the bite part frame to ensure the joint strength of the bite.
.
When Hailin and the others came to the workshop, workers were installing iron hoops on the composite mast under the command of Lu Youtian. Installing iron hoops can ensure the strength of the composite mast to the greatest extent. Even the entire straight mast must be installed with iron hoops.
hoop.
The parts where iron hoops need to be added have been marked with ink pens, and there are different numbers on them - because the diameter of the mast is not exactly the same up and down, each iron hoop is customized according to the size of the part.
The diameter is slightly smaller than the diameter of the mast to ensure that it can be tightly hooped once it is put on.
Each iron hoop is being heated in the heating furnace next to it. The heating furnace uses gas as fuel, which not only has a guaranteed calorific value, but is also clean to use. The iron hoops are heated to a red-hot level in the heating furnace, so that they can be just right.
Insert into the mast.
Lu Youtian stared at the industrial thermometer next to the heating furnace - ever since the invention of this thing, the original mysterious craftsmanship of craftsmen has become useless. In the past, he relied on looking at the color of the fire and the workpiece, the temperature of the skin and the slight sound emitted from the furnace.
He uses the sound to tell whether the appropriate temperature has been reached. This is his experience accumulated over the years. Even if he is willing to teach, it will be difficult for the young apprentice to understand it for a while. Since the Australians have widely promoted this thick and ugly
After the so-called thermometer, this kind of secret that can only be understood but cannot be expressed becomes worthless. The Australians have compiled special process manuals for each type of processing parts and processing techniques, and special processing parts will be included with the parts.
The process sheet was sent. The workers only need to check the process manual to know what temperature they should heat to, and then look at the thermometer's display to achieve a level of heat that is exactly the same as that of the old master.
This kind of thing made Lu Youtian very depressed for a while. However, he quickly adapted to this new technology - after all, it is more reliable to rely on personal senses without standards. It is not easy for him to have problems when processing and manufacturing workpieces.
"Take piece No. 1!" He yelled when he saw that the temperature had risen to the specified value. His son, Lu Shouyong, a first-level technician in the metalworking workshop, quickly used long-handled iron pliers to remove the red-hot piece from the furnace.
The iron hoop was taken out, and several other hand-held iron fitters helped, slowly putting the hot iron hoop on the mast. When the iron hoop touched the surface of the mast, wisps of white smoke came out, making a burning hiss.
There was a sound. From time to time, flames broke out. When the iron hoop was finally in place and stuck, a burst of small flames broke out around it. The workers quickly extinguished it.
"This thing is really exciting to watch!" Hailin said with emotion, "Industry is about making the impossible possible!"
Then, the workers began to hoop the second and third masts, and the entire mast hooping work will continue until early the next morning. The number of masts required in the shipbuilding plan is very large!
"I heard that if you can build a ship, you still use ropes as anchor chains?" Hailin asked Zhou Bili, who was observing the processing, "Why don't you use iron chains?"
Zhou Billy said: "This is to save iron - and save production time. Making iron chains by hand is a very time-consuming thing. In fact, iron chains are much easier to use than anchor cables."
"Didn't the Navy retrieve the iron chains that locked the river from the Pearl River Estuary? Why not use the ready-made ones?"
"I've seen that thing before. The craftsmanship is too rough and the iron material is not good. It was probably made at short notice. It's very brittle. Ji Wusheng has probably turned it into molten iron by now."
"Iron is fine, but it's the copper covering the bottom of the ship. Wu De is probably scratching his head. Even though it's copper, it still has to cover the bottom of a big ship."
"A lot of bronze cannons were seized from Guangdong this time, and most of them were turned into copper sheets."
The process of covering the bottoms of all ships with copper sheets is not difficult. What the Planning Institute finds difficult is that copper, as a scarce metal in China, has a limited stock in the warehouse. In order to meet the needs of the future power and electrical appliance industry
Due to demand, the Planning Institute had to impose strict restrictions on the use of copper in all places. Even wired telegraph systems use iron wires. Copper is only allowed to be used in places that cannot be replaced: including some refrigeration equipment, pipelines, telecommunications
Electrical equipment and valves, etc.
In order to expand copper reserves, the Planning Institute has purchased Japanese copper in Guangdong at high prices in the past. This copper has brought them high economic benefits - about 20% of silver can be extracted from it, but the copper reserves have increased very much.
limited.
Now that copper is needed to cover the bottom of the ship, whether the existing copper is enough and how much reserve can be left is what the Planning Institute is eager to know.
Most of the copper stored in the Planning Institute is red copper that has been re-refined using fire methods, as well as brass and bronze. The latter two are mainly from various trophies. Red copper has excellent extensibility, second only among all metals.
Yu Jin, Yin. The Planning Institute believes that if the copper plate can be made very thin, maybe a small amount of copper can meet the demand.
"There is no need to use copper." Ji Wusheng said at the planning meeting, as long as brass is used. According to the information provided by the Big Library, the copper plates covering the bottom of the ship are usually tin brass. That is, a small amount of tin is added to the brass.
Brass itself is a copper-zinc alloy. Zinc was widely used in ancient China, especially in coining coins. Zinc was often used as a filler. Therefore, in the non-ferrous metal inventory of the Planning Institute, the stock of zinc is very considerable.
Many are not even purchased specifically, but are by-products extracted from recycling copper coins and various household metal objects.
According to Ji Wusheng's suggestion, a kind of brass is specially made for the bottom of the boat. The proportion is roughly 65% copper and 35% zinc. It is the so-called a brass. This can minimize the consumption of red copper while maintaining the basic performance.
quantity.
"If the zinc content in brass is too high, the brittleness will become higher and it will become difficult to press process. So 35% zinc is almost enough."
The ductility of brass itself is also quite good. The thickness of brass strips rolled by modern industry can reach 0.02mm. Lingao's industrial system does not have such powerful equipment, but people in the machinery department estimate that with the existing processing capabilities
, rolling it to about 0.5mm is not a problem. This is much thinner than the copper sheet used by the British to cover the bottom of ships. The British basically used thin copper plates.
"Add 0.5% tin to a brass, and it becomes tin brass. This alloy has good heat resistance and the ability to resist seawater corrosion. It is the so-called navy brass."
Tin was also the most commonly used base metal in ancient China, and the inventory in the Planning Institute was larger than that of zinc. Not to mention the amount used was insignificant.
The Planning Institute approved the production plan for the production of tin brass strips. There is a small steel rolling mill in the Lingao Iron and Steel Complex, including two hot rolling mills, which can easily roll various steel plates and strips hot and cold.
Steel. However, Zhan Wuya decided to imitate a special rolling mill for production - after all, continuous production in the steel manufacturing industry will be a trend in the future, and it is impossible to temporarily shut down and switch production just because copper strips need to be rolled today.
To put it simply, a rolling mill is a series of rollers, with pressures ranging from small to large. The most critical of these are the strength and power levels of the rollers. These two are already capable of mass-producing high-power steam engines and various grades of high, medium, and low carbon steels.
It is not a difficult task for the manufacturing director department.
The only thing that is not ideal is the transmission gears and chains. So far, the quality of these things is still not up to standard, and the working life is very short. In some equipment with harsh working environments, the replacement frequency is very fast, which can only be said to be barely a solution.
Question. The scrap recycling warehouse of the Ministry of Metallurgy is full of gears, bearings and chains waiting to be recycled.
The rolling mill for producing copper plates was quickly manufactured with the cooperation of people from the Ministry of Machinery Industry. After a brief debugging, it was put into formal production. In order to ensure the strength, although 0.1mm yellow steel was rolled in the experimental production
Copper strip. In the end, it was decided that the copper plate used at the bottom of the ship was still a 1mm thick strip.
Rolls of tin and brass strips were transported to the shipyard. They were cut to certain sizes, and then workers used special brass rivets to hammer them into the bottom of the ship piece by piece. The copper pieces overlapped to form
Make sure that the wooden bottom of the boat is not exposed. The copper-clad area should always cover the full load waterline of the boat. This method can almost completely prevent the damage of shipworms, and even attachments such as barnacles will be greatly reduced.
In order to prevent the electrolysis of copper and iron in sea water, when the bottom of the ship is clad with copper, the exposed iron frame part of the bottom of the ship must be covered with wooden cladding boards in advance, and then filled and insulated with a mixture of human hair and tar to ensure
There is no electrochemical reaction between the two. Even the rudder bolts must be replaced with brass bolts to avoid electrolysis.
A wooden sailboat with carefully treated shipbuilding wood and copper-clad bottom can be used for 50 to 70 years with good regular maintenance. Even 100 years is no problem. Although the elders did not want 854 to serve for such a long time,
But everyone expects it to be used for at least 10 years. Even if it cannot be used as a warship, it can also be used as a transport ship.
The Ministry of Machinery Industry on Steam Engines has sufficient technical reserves to mass-produce 12-horsepower, 50-horsepower, 100-horsepower, 200-horsepower and 500-horsepower steam engines - Zhan Wuya, in accordance with Wang Luobin's standardization system construction requirements, stipulates that steam engines adopt all standardized designs
. All parts that can be used universally are manufactured according to unified standards and dimensions, and tolerances are reduced as much as possible - the latter is the goal that the entire Lingao industrial system is working tirelessly to achieve.
Due to the different layout and propulsion methods of ships, marine steam engines are very different from ordinary land-based steam engines. The Ministry of Machinery Industry has to develop two different steam engines to adapt to paddle wheels - so-called paddle wheel propulsion.
and propeller propulsion.
"To be honest, developing a marine steam engine is not a problem." Xiao Gui studied the line drawing of the 854 modification, "The question is, what to do with the propeller?"
The advantage of the propeller wheel is that it has a simple structure and there are no sealing problems during installation. The 854 is going to use a propeller, which involves the issue of the dynamic seal of the propeller shaft.
"This problem is very difficult to solve, at least I can't think of a way to solve it." Xiao Gui said, "There are several ways of dynamic sealing. After much deliberation, I only have to use the packing method. Packing around the propeller shaft will not burn and will absorb water.
Expansive filler.”
"I remember that there is something special about this rotating shaft." Mond suddenly remembered, "I heard from the old workers at the shipyard that older ships used iron pear wood bearings. This special wood bearing is extremely hard.
It does not need oil for lubrication, but relies on water for lubrication. The friction between the shaft and the shaft will produce a smooth water-soluble substance. It can not only lubricate the bearing but also ensure that water cannot enter the cabin through the shaft sleeve. I heard that iron pear wood bearings should be stored when stored.
Keep it moist, otherwise it will crack and affect use if it dries out. It’s very expensive.”
"Ironwood? This thing sounds very familiar. It seems that we have it in our ship material reserves." Zhan Wuya thought about it. Among the ship materials collected from Baitu Village, there was so-called ironwood. I wonder if it is.
The same thing. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation at ***(***.***).***, your support is my biggest motivation.)